Lonely outpost

On a small island just a few miles from Hong Kong, a Chinese customs team fights an important battle against smuggling. Li Wenfang reports on Dachan Island, Guangdong province.

Twenty-five-year-old Luo Jie, who studied at a US university and worked at a five-star hotel in Guangzhou, joined Guangzhou Customs in 2010 hoping to have a stable, respected and financially rewarding job. He did not expect to end up on an island inhabited only by staff of the customs bureau, an oil company and a power plant.

He was assigned to Dachan Customs and posted on 0.92-square-kilometer Dachan Island, off She-kou area in Shenzhen, Guangdong province. He soon found himself jumping from the customs speedboat onto cargo vessels swaying at anchorage for anti-smuggling checks.